Pauls Presents Credentials Today; 20,000 Yellow Badges May Greet Him

August 19, 1965

JERUSALEM (Aug. 18)

West Germany’s first Ambassador-designate to Israel, Dr. Rolf Pauls, is scheduled to present his formal letters of credence to President Zalman Shazar tomorrow, and about 20,000 residents of this capital city have been provided with yellow badges, emblazoned with the word “Jude,” to wear in protest against him and against Israeli diplomatic relations with the Bonn regime.

The badges, accompanied by leaflets, were distributed at random in the streets yesterday by about 30 faculty members and students at the Hebrew University. The leaflets urged Israelis not to forget the Nazi crimes against European Jewry, not to use German products, and not to befriend Germans.

Authors of the leaflets stressed that they did not belong to any political party, and that the group had no desire to express any opinion on the issue of Bonn-Jerusalem diplomatic relations because this was a political decision taken by the Government. Their appeal, they said, was directed at the individual Israeli, urging him “not to forget.”